NSO Letter to BBC Head of Religion & Ethics

This morning’s programme carried a lengthy piece on the CST Report on the increase in incidents against Britain’s Jewish community. The increase was attributed in a large measure to what some see as the Israeli government’s heavy-handed action against Palestinian’s in Gaza.

Sikhs sympathise with the wholly innocent members of the British Jewish community, but we are concerned over the continual emphasis on the concerns of those of the Abrahamic faiths to the total indifference to those of others.

Sikhs are particularly vulnerable to ‘mistaken identity’ attacks on members of their community resulting from anger over Islamic extremism. The first person killed in a ‘revenge attack’ after 9/11 was a Sikh, and a similarly motivated attack on a Sikh gurdwara in the USA resulted in the massacre of many innocent worshippers. More recently, following the Charlie Hebdo massacre, a young Sikh in a TESCO supermarket in Cardiff suffered life-threatening injuries from a machete attack, in yet another case of mistaken identity. Incidentally, this is equal to the total number of serious assaults identified in the CST Report.

We have referred to the plight of the wholly innocent Sikh community by way of example. Other faith communities also experience bigotry. Name calling and worse. The BBC should provide better balance and perspective, or be more open and honest and re-title the Sunday Programme ‘the Sunday Programme for Abrahamic Faiths‘ and acknowledge the rest of us don’t matter.